Cold Case Squad

by Edna Buchanan

  Is she coming on to me? he wondered.

  “Okay,” she said, suddenly brisk and all business, as though she’d read his mind. “Here’s what I’ve got so far. A couple gets married in Canada. Big family wedding. The happy newlyweds drive south for a three-week honeymoon. No official itinerary. Maybe headed as far as Miami. Maybe not. Probably depended on how many motel stops they made along the way,” she said slyly. “The couple is never heard from again. The car never found. Credit cards unused, bank accounts untouched. Gone.

  “The stories don’t say if he was a drinker. He was thirty-four, she was twenty-seven. First marriage for both. Knew each other for seven years. The endless honeymoon remains a mystery.”

  “They’re still in the car,” he said quietly, “probably underwater.” He remembered the scoop-neck blouse Nell was wearing and how beneath it her breasts looked as perky as her little voice sounded. “They ran off an unfamiliar road into water, or somebody killed them and ran the car into the water with their bodies inside.”

  The wind-driven rain lashed against his windows. His room suddenly seemed unbearably lonely, with the only light and warmth at the other end of the telephone line.

  “Anything else?”

  “Yeah. A romantic stranger, approximately forty, disappears after marrying a lonely, well-to-do, and somewhat older Boca Raton widow. Her money and jewelry disappear with him. Lots of it. Police investigate, and guess what they find? More abandoned brides! In Fort Lauderdale and Key West, they all have the same story. He used a different name each time. Each wife reported him missing before realizing he’d ripped them off. Far as I can tell, he’s never turned up. The Boca cops might know.”

  Stone frowned. “What else?”

  “Don’t you ever get enough?” Her voice dropped to a sultry purr.

  He chuckled. “Never.”

  “Okay. Two years ago we ran a story about a college girl from Wyandotte, Missouri. She was on a mission to Miami looking for her long-lost father.

  “Dad was a drinker, a loser who abandoned the family when she was seven. But he kept in periodic touch, with Christmas and birthday cards, occasional weepy phone calls—most likely collect. Said he loved them, missed them, and wanted to come home, but wouldn’t do it while he was still down and out. He didn’t want them to see him until he was clean and sober with a job and money in his pockets.

  “Last time she heard from him was a letter from Miami, postmarked May eighteenth, 1992. He loved them, missed them, realized how much his family meant to him, yada yada yada.”

  Stone smiled at Nell’s cynical take and her oddly upbeat delivery of a sad story.

  “Said he finally got a break, blah, blah, blah, blah, was getting his life together, coming home in style, planned to start a business. Promised to make everything up to her and her mother. He’d be there in a few weeks. So every time the bus stops or a phone or a doorbell rings, the poor kid, then eleven or twelve, expects it to be Daddy Dearest.

  “But they never hear from him again. No more cards, no more letters, and no phone calls.

  “So, two years ago, a now grown-up twenty-two years old, she takes a vacation to Miami to find her father. Thought he might still be here. Wanted to tell him money didn’t matter, she just wanted to see him again. She hit every homeless shelter, every bar, every jail and flophouse. Some vacation. A reporter did a nice little heart-tugger. We ran a picture of her holding her dad’s photo. I couldn’t find a follow-up, so looks like she was unsuccessful.”

  Stone had stopped smiling.

  “When was that last letter postmarked?”

  “Let’s see. May eighteenth, 1992.”

  Stone sat up and reached for the notebook beside his bed.

  “Where she from again? What’s her name?”

  “What will you give me if I tell you?” she teased.

  “What do you want?” His mind raced. Had he already heard enough to find the story without Nell’s help?

  “I’ll have to think about that. Let me see now, what do I—”

  “Nell,” he said. “Tell me the name.”

  “Donna Hastings. Dad is Michael Hastings, age thirty-seven when last heard from. He’d be forty-nine now.”

  “Can you print me out a copy of that story?” He gave her the fax number.

  “Sure, you think it’s anything?”

  “Probably not.” He tried to sound casual. “But it’s worth checking out.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The relentless rain drowned out all other sounds until he opened the door to the club and the driving beat of the music washed over him. The first thing Nazario saw was Floria, up on stage, her body gyrating, her tawny skin glistening.

  He settled at the bar and ordered a Cuba Libre. The place wasn’t crowded. It was still early, the rain probably keeping people away.

  Floria’s legs looked long from where he sat, though she was actually petite, with high, full breasts, not big bosomed, but perfectly proportioned for her frame. Natural, not siliconed, implanted, or man-made. She seemed a little thinner than when he last saw her. Floria was not a trained dancer. She had a style of her own, a delicate, almost ladylike way of prancing, twirling, and spiraling to the beat of the music as she peeled down to a G-string and red high heels. Her hair was shorter now, a mass of tight dark ringlets with auburn streaks and golden highlights that shone and shimmered in the spotlight.

  Their eyes connected as he ordered his drink. Her lips curled into an arch smile and her hips waggled in his direction with a little bump of recognition. He felt a slight sting of embarrassment as a dark-shirted man at the bar turned to look at him.

  She finished her performance, scampered offstage, tied on a shirt to cover her breasts, and, grinning like a schoolgirl, trotted to where he sat.

  “Like a migratory bird, you always come back,” she trilled. She rested one hand on his shoulder as she climbed onto the stool next to his. “I knew you couldn’t stay away forever.”

  There was a smattering of applause as a blonde waving a tiny American flag skipped on stage in a skimpy little blue-and-white sailor suit and saluted.

  The heavyset bartender frowned at Floria as he meandered toward them. She introduced Nazario as an old friend.

  She didn’t want anything to drink. “I just want to drink you up with my eyes,” she said.

  They adjourned to a tiny table in a dark corner.

  He looked at her glistening skin, then deep into her golden eyes, and inhaled her scent. She is a trap, a voice inside told him, repeating the words, the mantra that would save him.

  “Where have you been, baby?” She leaned forward, lips parted, as though eager for his answer.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “Staying on the program?”

  She smiled, eyes guarded in the dim light. “I’m fine. Let’s talk about you, honey.”

  He knew why she didn’t answer his question. Floria never lied to him.

  “How much do you weigh now?” Was it even a hundred pounds? “Are you eating, taking care of yourself?”

  She playfully shrugged away his questions. “Let’s go outside for some air,” she said.

  “It’s raining.”

  She lightly caressed his hand. “We can sit in your car.”

  She is a trap, the voice echoed.

  “I need a cigarette,” she said.

  He stepped to the door to check. The rain had let up a little.

  “Come on,” he said.

  She signaled the bartender that she’d be right back. “Where’s your car?”

  “No. Not the car,” he said. “We can talk over here.”

  They huddled together beneath an overhang at the corner of the building, protected by walls on three sides. He held the match as she lit her cigarette. A kaleidoscope of lights reflected on the dark, slick wet street as traffic rolled by. Floria fit neatly under his protective arm.

  “I need some information, chica. Hoped you could help us out.”

  She exhaled. Smoke from her cig
arette spiraled into the soggy night.

  “I thought you looked me up because you missed me.” Her voice sounded small.

  “I do. I think about you all the time.” He was telling the truth. “But you know how it is with us.”

  “How is it with us?” she asked mournfully. “Tell me again.”

  “You know. I don’t want to go out on a call someday and find out that the body in the street is you.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  She flipped her cigarette into the drenched parking lot, where it sputtered and died in an inky puddle.

  “I’d live with the same fear because you’re a cop. Look at McDonald. You worked with him. One of the girls here lost it when he was killed. Couldn’t work for weeks. She’s still not over it. She knew him a long time.”

  “Tell me about it,” he said. “He had a way with the ladies.”

  “So do you.” She turned easily into his arms, raised her face to his, and kissed him.

  He turned her back to the wall, pressed against her, and kissed her again.

  “Where’s your car?”

  He couldn’t catch his breath. Hand in hand, they ran to his car.

  He couldn’t wait to touch her everywhere. She was unbuckling his belt. The car windows steamed up and fresh torrents of rain pounded on the car roof.

  “This isn’t why I came here, Floria,” he told her later.

  “That’s the hell of it,” she murmured, curled up beside him, her bare right knee nestled in his crotch.

  “Is that time right?” She sounded drowsy, squinting at the dashboard clock. “I’ve got to go back soon.”

  He told her what he was looking for.

  “I remember the redhead with the snake. They called her Desiree. Hadn’t seen or heard a word about her in years. Thought she left town to get married. She knew how to dance, but that snake. It gave me the creeps. She talked to it like it was a baby. Fed it mice and rats, live ones.” Floria shuddered and lit a cigarette.

  “Ran with a rough crowd.” She inhaled, licked her lips, and cracked open the passenger-side window. “Danced at the Place Montmartre, on the Beach. Some mobbed-up guy owned it until he got wasted. Then the place shut down.”

  “You see her after that?”

  Floria shrugged. “She must have left around that time.”

  “I need her real name, age, where she’s at now, if she had family here, or friends she mighta stayed in touch with.”

  “I know somebody who knew her. Come by tomorrow night?” She smiled. “I can have something for you by then.”

  “How about if you call me?” he said.

  She stared at the floor for a long moment.

  “Okay,” she said wistfully.

  They went back inside. A dark-haired girl in long braids and an abbreviated Indian costume was on stage.

  “God, I’m on next. I’ve gotta go.” Floria kissed his cheek. “Don’t stay away so long next time, Pete.”

  He went to the men’s room and surprised the man in the dark shirt masturbating.

  His spine stiffened as he flashed back to the first time the tall priest took him to his office. He was eight years old, and it was the first time he had ever seen an adult with an erection. He caught his reflection in the bathroom mirror. For a moment he didn’t recognize himself as he tried to remember. Was that the orphanage in New Jersey or the one in New Orleans? As if it mattered.

  Stomach churning, he returned to the bar and waited until Floria reappeared on stage. He watched her, then left near the end of her act. He paused at the door for one more look. The lights backlit her hair, her soft skin glistened as she moved, and her golden eyes met his. The club was noisier now and more crowded. It was a relief to plunge out into the sweltering night and leave it behind.

  Chapter Twenty

  “I think I’ve got something for you,” said Dan Powers from the Forensic Video Unit.

  “I love it when you talk to me like that,” Burch said. “We’re on the way.”

  “Powers wants to show off the enhanced video,” he told the detectives.

  Lieutenant Riley joined them.

  “Here we have the original.” Powers rolled a computer-enhanced image: a chubby boy tying a balloon to the collar of a golden retriever. Children milling about as a white blur passes in the background.

  “The videotape actually picks up more than you can see,” he said. “All machines crop the tape on playback. But the bigger picture is really available, with more pixels.

  “Here we go. See, with frame averaging you can pull out more detail.” He locked in on the blur.

  “A van.” Stone peered at the image. “Looks like a white Chevy van.”

  “Right,” Powers said. “A ’ninety, or ’ninety-one model.”

  The van slowed to a crawl in front of the Terrell home, stopped for a moment or two, then moved out of the frame.

  “As you see, the tag was never visible.”

  “That’s it?” Burch said. “We wanted you to zoom in on the driver’s back pocket, pull out his license, and blow it up on screen.”

  “I may have something almost as good,” Powers said. “The van moves out of frame for ninety-two seconds. Probably the time it took to drive around the block. When it comes back, you can see it’s clearly the same vehicle; note the little sticker in the back of the side window. Probably a parking permit or club validation.

  “The next shot is from a more favorable vantage point, better lighting and fewer obstructions.”

  Joan Walker, still operating the camera, had moved in order to focus more closely on HoHo and his magic.

  Powers worked his own. The van slowed again, then stopped briefly at the far corner of the Terrell house. “You stabilize the video and the image becomes rock solid. Look. There.” A figure, a fleeting image, blocked by the van itself, scrambled into the passenger side.

  “No way to see the passenger any better. But you can see the driver’s profile.”

  “Looks like a woman,” Stone said.

  The van drove out of the frame. “Gone, a full three minutes before fire begins to erupt from the garage.”

  He brought up the driver’s image again.

  “Not good enough for a positive ID, but that hair’s got to help. Unless, of course, it’s a red wig.”

  “Big Red,” Burch said. “She was there.”

  “Charles Terrell is back from the dead,” Nazario said.

  “What do you mean back? The son of a bitch never went. That’s the hell of it,” Burch said.

  “The camera never blinks,” Powers said happily. “The camera never blinks.”

  “My entire career as a cop,” Burch said in the elevator, “the part I hated most was breaking hearts. Telling strangers that their sons or daughters, husbands, wives, or fathers wouldn’t be home again. Ever.

  “You’d knock on a door and they’d answer, without a clue that their life was about to change forever. Some would scream or start to cry before you could spit it out. They’d look at your face and know. And I’d know I was gonna be part of their worst bad memory forever.”

  “We’ve all felt that, Sarge,” Stone said. “Only a sicko wouldn’t.”

  “Yeah, but now I’m looking at something even worse. Breaking the bad news to April Terrell and her kids. ‘Sorry, but your dad isn’t dead. Nope, he’s one son of a bitch, kids, a cold stone killer. But if we can just hunt him down, we’ll try to have the state do the job. And this time we can make sure he’s dead.’ How the hell you think that’s gonna go over?”

  “Maybe it’s still premature, Sarge,” Nazario said.

  “No,” Riley said. “If you’re sure they have no guilty knowledge, it’s only fair to give them a heads-up. I’d hate like hell to have them find out some other way and think we kept it from them. Just swear them to secrecy until it’s resolved.”

  “Uh-oh,” Stone said, as the elevator doors opened. Padron was waiting, with a stranger.

  “There you are!” Padron greeted them. “I
was wondering where everybody went. What’s happening? Anything I should know?”

  “Not a thing,” Riley said. “Just a routine meeting.”

  The balding stranger wore glasses and a bulky vest with multiple pockets. Several cameras swung from leather straps around his neck.

  “I’m here to shoot Stone,” he cheerfully announced. He was the photographer assigned to Nell’s story.

  “Do what you’d normally be doing. Pretend I’m not here,” he told the embarrassed detective.

  “Say cheese.” Burch grinned and waggled his fingers at Stone.

  “A star in the making.” Nazario rolled his eyes. “A matinee idol.”

  “Don’t forget, we want autographed copies,” Corso said.

  Stone noticed that even Riley, whose crazy idea was responsible for all this, retreated to her office.

  “Don’t disturb me,” she said, closing her door, “unless he really shoots Stone.”

  “Listen,” Stone told the photographer. “We’re all a team here. We work together. You can shoot pictures of all of us, the whole crew.”

  The photographer checked his assignment card. “That’s not what it says here. You’re the subject.”

  “Did you talk to Nell Hunter?” Stone asked irritably, aware he’d be razzed unmercifully by the others. “She said she was sending me a fax.”

  “Oh yeah.” The photographer patted his pockets. “She said to give you this.”

  He pulled an eight-by-ten manila envelope from an inside pocket of his vest.

  It contained a copy of a news story, along with the picture published with it. An earnest-looking college girl with hopeful brown eyes holding a family photo of her runaway father, the long-lost Michael Hastings. He sat laughing on a wooden front porch, elbows resting on his knees. He wore jeans and a work shirt and was holding a stick out to a spotted puppy.

  On the back was a penciled phone number in Wyandotte, Missouri, and a Post-it note from Nell.

  “Dear Sam Spade, Photos don’t fax so well, so I’ll send this with Hal. Hope you get lucky and he’s your Mr. Bones. You owe me. Nell.”